


Big Hopes

by buddenbrooks



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 18:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11385732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buddenbrooks/pseuds/buddenbrooks
Summary: Hoseok looks for the big love of his life in all the wrong places. A lot more emotions and a lot less smut than either of us were hoping for.





	Big Hopes

All his adult life, Hoseok both knew and didn't know that one day he would settle down. He knows it, in the blind, believing way of a true romantic, which is what he is. He cries at romantic films, and sometimes at sunsets, and at random acts of kindness. He believes wholeheartedly, without a trace of irony, in the value of flowers and candlelit dinners. If he thinks of himself in that shadow, distant future of his old age, he can't imagine himself without someone else at his side: a figure even more shadowy and indistinct, but unquestionably there.

He doesn't know it, because in a practical, realistic sense (and he can be practical and realistic, when he needs to, like every time he's swallowed the bitter pill that he's not going to get called back, and that today, as every other day, he continues alone) he knows it's not something he can rely on. It's hard to find partners just for casual sex, let alone for something more. Every time he's got close, the other party found an excuse to break away. It wasn't the right time for them, or they couldn't stand their parents to find out, or it was only ever a bit of fun, nothing serious.

(That one always hurts the most: to be seen as a fun hobby, dropped when it gets too intense. As if they don't realise that he has feelings and desires of his own, as if he's just an attractive dolly, tossed aside when it becomes too worn with use. Those are the ones who leave him curled in his bedroom, feeling like he can't ever show his face to the sun again, but he always does, because Hoseok believes, with unfailing, occasionally desperate faith, that things will get better eventually.)

He knows he can't say for sure that it will happen, but he knows he can't face life without believing that it will. It's an odd trick of double-think he has to do, to make life bearable. Because as much as he pours his love out to his (often unwilling) friends and his (adoring but occasionally emotionally unavailable) mother, it's not the same.

It's not the same as those smiling, symbiotic, sunny-faced couples he sees out in the streets, their hands moulded to one another without a thought for anyone else. He wants that: the whole of someone's attention; for every one of their smiles and kisses to be for him and him alone.

"Does that sound greedy?" he asks Minhyuk one time, when they're lying in the park trying to get over last night's hangover. Minhyuk, with his head resting on Hoseok's thighs and his massive shades covering half his face, could be dead if not for the feeble way his chest is rising and falling.

"Mm. Sort of," he says. "But what do I know about true love."

Minhyuk isn't a romantic - not in the same way, anyway. He wants a partner, at some point, later on in life, but he freely admits he's too selfish for one right now, too addicted to the freedom of being a pretty young thing in a world of bright lights and alcohol. He's the type who can have a fleeting encounter somewhere dark and anonymous, and have nothing left of it by the morning except a secret smile on his lips.

Hoseok's the type to wake up to an empty bed and no note, and feel, yet again, like he's clutched at something and had it slip through his fingers. Maybe this is what Minhyuk doesn't understand. He didn't grow up with the sense of there always being something a little out of his reach. Minhyuk's family was comfortable - family holidays once a year; music lessons in school; hot lunches every day. Maybe Minhyuk just doesn't know what it's like to feel like something is always lacking. Now Hoseok's older, and has satisfied (in some way, although the hunger for more always remains) his financial needs, maybe he's transferred that feeling of need into his romantic life.

Maybe he's just getting older.

"I know it exists," he says. "I know it's a real thing. I just don't seem to be able to get it."

"You watch too many films," Minhyuk says through a yawn. "Films always show people getting love by force, don't they? Running after it and wrestling it to the ground. Life ain't like that. How happy would you be if someone woke you up with a boombox outside your window at 3am?" There's a pause. Hoseok's sure Minhyuk knows exactly what he's thinking. "God. You'd probably love it, I know."

"It's just - for someone to go to that effort. It means they really care."

"It's always after they've been turned down, though. If they really cared, they'd show it straight away. Not fuck you off and then try to make up for it with one big dramatic gesture."

Minhyuk really doesn't have that romantic streak, but Hoseok has to admit he's making sense. Even so, the thought lingers in his mind: waking up to music through his window; leaning out to see someone (blurred face, blurred figure, but he can still see the adoring light in their eyes) smiling up at him, come all the way through the night to let him know he's loved.

It's ridiculous, he knows it is. Kihyun frequently accuses him of thinking like a sixteen year old girl, and he knows it's not too far off the mark.

"I just want someone to love," he mumbles, feeling ridiculous.

Minhyuk turns onto his side, reaches out with one long hand to tickle under Hoseok's chin, with this patient, near-doting expression. "There's not enough love in the world to satisfy you."

  
Minhyuk's had a lucky escape with Hoseok. They've been friends for years, since the Fresher's night at college when both of them were equally topless, equally loud and equally covered in body paint. And of course, with them both moving in the same circles, they've fallen into bed more than a few times. Hoseok could never have fallen in love with Minhyuk though, accidentally or otherwise. Minhyuk's saving grace, as messy and destructive as he can be, is his unfailing honesty.

"This doesn't mean anything," he'd said firmly as he shoved Hoseok back against the mattress, and Hoseok made himself blink away the stars already half-formed in his eyes.

"I know."

"No," and he put a finger under Hoseok's chin which somehow stilled him, and he looked down with total sincerity. "I mean it. I don't want you getting hurt or thinking this means anything more. This is just a night of fun. We're still friends, we'll stay friends, but nothing else. This is only happening if you promise you understand me."

Hoseok sort of collapsed under him a bit and took a second to breathe in and out, and compose himself, and he found himself accepting of everything that had been said. He nodded, and said yes, and Minhyuk said, good, and then kissed him hard, and they woke up together only not in each other's arms. It was okay, and it continues to be okay however many times they do it, because the boundary is already in place.

As long as there's honesty, he can deal with it. It's being made to feel special for a night, and then dropped without a word, which he really hates.

Kihyun had been another matter, more confusing but, in the end, worth the hassle because he knows he's gained a friend for life. They met one night, as so often happens, on a dancefloor: Kihyun was getting over someone and Hoseok was still looking for someone to get over. It was good, blurry, scratchy sex which went on longer than either of them had expected. Hoseok woke with a start late in the afternoon, in a bed he only recognised after serious thinking, with the usual blank space next to him and a pounding head.

Well, he'd thought, another night down.

Then the door swung open and Kihyun appeared, his pointed face blotchy and eyes half-gummed together, wearing black boxers and a band t-shirt. He had a tray in his hands, with two steaming bowls of instant ramen on it, and he carried it to the bed and set it down at Hoseok's side.

"Don't get any ideas," he said, "but I knew you'd feel like shit when you woke up. I sure as hell do. And anyway, my house mates are all in. Not having you do the walk of shame down the hallway."

Hoseok did feel like shit, and he knew he probably looked it too. Unlike Minhyuk, with his god-given gift of pure and perfect skin, Hoseok's a blotchy drunk. He looked at the tray of ramen Kihyun was sliding onto his knees and felt such a crashing wave of gratitude mixed with hideous self pity that it must have shown on his face, because Kihyun laughed and slid back into bed on the other side of him.

"Jesus. You look pathetic. What was it, the second round of tequilas or the beer on the way home?"

Hoseok swallowed down the sadness and neediness and want and everything else, and pulled a bowl of ramen towards him. The familiar smell, a little spicy and a lot of artificial, comforted him a bit. The heat between his thighs did even more. "It's not the booze. I'm just pathetic."

Kihyun gave his shoulder a sort of half-pat, half-open handed slap, and dug into his own food. "Sorry if I got your hopes up. You're really out there in a dank club looking for something long term?"

And Hoseok knows it's stupid. He knows that if he's going to find the one true love of his life, it's not going to be on a sweaty, sticky dance floor where you can hardly see the person you're grinding on, let alone hear them whisper sweet nothings into your ear. True love (he knows, he's seen it in the films) occurs in softly lit parks, sharing a packed lunch on a slatted memorial bench; it happens in the whisper of galleries and museums where hearts bond over their shared passions; it happens in busy streets where a moment's eye contact leads to a life time together. It happens when friends introduce friends, and parents introduce children, and when someone special moves to the desk across from yours.

He knows this, but Hoseok works long hours in a dark office on his own, and when he has evenings free he just needs to get out: to move, to free himself, to work out the cramps in his spine and hands, and feel something other than alone.

Nothing does that quite like a club. So even though he should, perhaps, be searching the lonely hearts' column or updating one of his many abandoned online profiles (he doesn't know what it is about his profiles but all he ever seems to get is a bunch of dick pics, and he's never heard of a love story blossoming from an unsolicited dick picture) he's out again on the Friday night, with Minhyuk at one elbow and Kihyun at the other. Neither one of them is his true love, but they're always there, at least.

"I'm just saying," Kihyun is just saying, because Kihyun is always 'just saying' something or other. "Just tonight, forget about finding something long term. You know you're not going to find it in a fuckin' gay bar. No one goes to a gay bar looking for marriage material. Just, for once, enjoy the music and if you hook up, enjoy the hook up, and, you know?"

"I know," Hoseok says, because Kihyun says this every time they go out, as if his failure to be interested in a long term relationship means that Hoseok's romantic life is now his sole responsibility. Or it might just be that, despite his snarky exterior and the many safety pins and studded belts adorning his small frame, Kihyun has turned out to be the mum friend.

"I'm just over seeing you eating your heart out over some douchebag who's just looking to get laid," Kihyun continues, not pausing in his lecture even as he wrestles their pre-game bottle of cheap rose wine out of Minhyuk's hands. "And Minhyuk, fix your eyeliner, you look like a low rent Siouxsie Sioux."

"That's, like, what I'm going for," Minhyuk mutters, but licks his finger and starts dabbing under his eye anyway. "He's right, dude, you've gotta stop looking for love and just, y'know, go with it. Have fun. You're only young once."

"Go with it. Right." But Hoseok doesn't feel young, and he doesn't feel like going with it.

They arrive at Jellyfish at half ten, which is early by their standards. Minhyuk says immediately that he's not drunk enough to dance yet, and makes a beeline for the bar, although Hoseok suspects this has something to do with the number of goodlooking bartenders Minhyuk's always trying to chat up. Kihyun buys the two of them a couple of rounds of neon coloured shots from the boy with the leather belts across his bare chest who's always circling the floor.

"I love puking technicolour," Kihyun yells, and hooks two fingers into Hoseok's belt to drag him out into the crush of people.

It only takes half an hour for Kihyun to get separated and lost in the crowd - this usually happens, and sometimes it's because Kihyun's small and easily carried off by the ebb and flow of bodies, and sometimes it's because he's spotted someone he likes on the other side of the room. Mum friend or not, he's voracious when he's got his eye on someone. Alone, and not really in the mood any more, Hoseok decides he needs to be a lot drunker than this as well.

Predictably, Minhyuk's still at the bar, making doe eyes at one of the bartenders and sipping suggestively on some electric blue cocktail. "The fuck is that?" Hoseok shouts into his ear.

"Blue Mai Tai. They're wicked, get one."

Hoseok, unlike Kihyun, does not enjoy puking technicolour, so he gets a vodka lemonade instead, and then two more because fuck it, why not. The evening started with a lecture about how he shouldn't get his hopes up, and without his hopes he has nothing but exhaustion and the depressing thought of a long life spent utterly alone, so he might as well get drunk enough that it doesn't matter any more.

"I didn't hear any of that," Minhyuk shouts, "but it sounds fucking bleak. Lighten up, man, come on. It's Friday night."

Hoseok slurps down the last of his - fourth? fifth? - drink and turns back to the bar. "You don't get it," he whines (he knows he's whining, and he knows whining doesn't get you laid, much less snag you a life partner, but it feels good to do). The music is too loud, the air is too hot, he's already too drunk for comfort, and all he can think about is how much he wants to be in bed with someone big-spooning him, watching a cheesy film.

Minhyuk jabs him in the shoulder, and he loses half his mouthful of vodka lemonade to the bar top. The bartender deepens his already deep scowl and throws down some blue paper towel on the spill.

"What?" Hoseok doesn't really say but more expresses with his face, turning to Minhyuk.

Minhyuk also doesn't say anything, he just wags his head towards his left side and pistons his eyebrows up and down like a weird marionette. This is the last moment that Hoseok will continue to indulge him, he decides, and after this he's going home, Friday night or not. He leans slightly, to see past Minhyuk's stringy figure, and -

The dude is big. Hoseok's not exactly small himself; he's in the gym four times a week at the very least, and spends more time checking on the bulk gaining in his arms and shoulders than any self-respecting man should - according to Minhyuk, anyway, but Minhyuk is six foot tall and built like a whippet so it's hardly fair for him to comment. Even Hoseok's size, though, doesn't compare to the dude standing just a foot away from him. He's just barely shorter than Minhyuk, and easily twice as broad. He's wearing a grey muscle vest which displays triceps and biceps which Hoseok doesn't think he could make his fingers meet around. There's a clear inch of space about his figure; he dominates the area he's standing in easily, and from the look of faint bewilderment he has as he painstakingly counts out some money, he doesn't even realise he's doing it. His face is a photoshop contrast to the rest of him: he has bright brown eyes and a screwed up sort of mouth, and overall looks absolutely sweet natured, good humoured and a little bit dopey.

He evidently gives up in his counting and hands the bartender a fistful of crumpled notes, and as the bartender sighs and starts to sort through them and smooth them out, the big dude glances to either side of him, maybe to see if he's holding anyone up.

To his left side, Hoseok can see a flash of long hair and the curve of a pert bottom clad in a leather mini skirt. He crosses his fingers hard and steps on Minhyuk's toe to wipe the knowing smirk off his face. Minhyuk, well trained in these situations, melts quietly into the crowd and disappears, although Hoseok knows he's probably just hiding somewhere to watch.

Slowly, still with that open, vaguely baffled expression, the big guy turns his head from the girl on his left, and swings his eyes to his right hand side, with all the ponderous majesty of a grazing elephant. Hoseok holds his breath until their eyes meet, and then a bit longer for good luck.

The thing is, he's not really sure how to play this one. Picking up guys smaller than him, and younger than him, has always been easy. He's good looking, and stacked, and he knows how to play this to his advantage. It's usually him in the muscle vest, subtly straining back his shoulders to make his pecs stand out, watching some shy little twink go weak at the knees. Or the guys are built like Minhyuk: taller than him and thread-thin, and equally keen to grope his muscles.

Now he's the smaller one, he doesn't know what to do. And not just because it feels like all his Christmases, birthdays and Pepero days have come at the same time. Although he pretends that all he wants is a long term someone, really he'd always been hoping for a big long term someone. Ever since the night back in November when he hooked up with that insanely pretty guy with the mile-wide shoulders and the beautiful soft lips. They'd been almost equally matched for strength and size: Hoseok a little smaller and stockier; the other guy leaner but still with solid muscles and gorgeous almost-but-not-quite abs.

Ever since then Hoseok's not been sure if he could ever happily settle with someone smaller than him. "I could really go wild with him," he'd said to Kihyun, "I didn't have to worry about hurting him or anything and - "

"You want to be the little spoon," Kihyun said flatly.

Hoseok definitely prefers to be the little spoon. It's that whole sense of lacking that he has. He likes to be comforted. He likes to feel safe; that's why he invests so much faith in horoscopes and protection amulets; that's why, on days when he feels shaky, he wears enormous hoodies or coats and burrows right down into them. That's why he has far too many pillows on his bed.

He's worked and struggled on his own for his entire life. He thinks that if he's going to settle down with someone, he's got every right to want it to be someone who'll let him be the little spoon. Someone who'll look after him. God knows he needs a little looking after.

So Hoseok looks across the bar at this big, broad, good looking guy, and as their eyes meet and his palms grow damp and he feels his body, on instinct, settle into the most flattering pose it can think of, all Hoseok can think is, 'please'.

Maybe, if he weren't praying so hard, he'd recognise the bolt which shoots up his spine as that 'love on first sight' sensation he's always dreamed of.

The other guy doesn't look away. His odd, triangular smile grows at the corners and his eyebrows lift, as if he can't quite believe what he's seeing. Hoseok nods to him. He steps in closer, sliding his beer down the bar top with his wrist dragging in the damp trail behind it.

Right then the music changes, to the latest sugary pop hit. This one is about finding your true love in an unlikely place, and there couldn't be a better sign than that Hoseok doesn't even notice how his Hollywood-perfect moment is panning out. He's only got eyes for the man standing next to him.

"Hi," the guy says, and puts out a meaty hand. "Hyunwoo."

"Hoseok," he says, and enjoys the sensation of being towered over. Hyunwoo shakes his hand, his grip not as tight as Hoseok expected, and his own palm gratifyingly damp, although Hyunwoo looks like a sweater, judging by the damp hems on his muscle vest and the beads of perspiration dotting his forehead. His hair is cropped short, close to shaven around the sides. He looks like maybe he works outside, something with his hands if his arm muscles are anything to judge by.

"Do you dance?" Hyunwoo asks, gesturing with his head towards the floor.

"Only when I've had enough to drink."

"I should get you a beer then," Hyunwoo says, and okay, it's not the smoothest or most original line he's ever heard, and he doesn't even really drink beer, but after a second he has a cold bottle in his hand and Hyunwoo's big hand heavy on his waist and he's being led out onto the floor where the press of partiers forces him close enough to Hyunwoo that he can smell his sweat and cologne. His arms are solid, and Hoseok can't close his hand around them.

When he wakes up the next morning, there's a space in the bed next to him: a still-warm, vaguely damp, Hyunwoo-smelling space. Hoseok just lies and stares at the indentation in the pillow. It hurts worse than the ache in his thighs from where they'd been wrapped around Hyunwoo's waist half the night.

"I hope you don't mind, I helped myself to tea." It must look comical, the way Hoseok jerks up onto his elbows and goggles at Hyunwoo, but Hyunwoo doesn't laugh. His eyebrows do that faintly confused wriggle that Hoseok's already familiar with and then he settles on a smile. "I didn't know which type you'd want, so I just made it black."

Hoseok usually drinks coffee in the morning; the twenty different kinds of tea in his cupboard are for lunch times and evenings, and all have their own particular purpose, but the tea Hyunwoo's bringing him is the best thing he's ever drunk. Hyunwoo slides back into bed, the mattress dipping under his weight, and sits there drinking his tea as if they've been married for years already.

It's maybe the strangest way Hoseok's ever spent the morning after. It's certainly the best. Now, he thinks as he squirms a bit closer to Hyunwoo's sleepy, soft morning warmth, he only has to hope that there'll be another one. Hoseok's very good at hoping.


End file.
